


some days you're the only thing i know

by fre_sha_vo_ca_do



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Drugs, F/M, Hallucinations, Hearing Voices, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change, Violence, and they're so soft, because i like to torture myself with angst, but barry is an ASS in this, caitlin is kinda soft, for a short period of time i swear, i can't tag to save my own life, i had to hurt them, i love him ?? so much ??, in which amunet is wildly injured and norvock spirals hard, incapacitating illness, its mostly norvocks pov, norvock has anxiety because i project like a bitch, norvock is a disaster, thats for norvock, thats mostly because i can't write amunet, yep thats where this is going
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:41:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27108919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fre_sha_vo_ca_do/pseuds/fre_sha_vo_ca_do
Summary: this is going to get updated once i actually know where the story is going because honestly I have no fucking clue, the gist of it is that amunet taps out due to injury and norvock has a massive crisis about it
Relationships: Amunet Black/Matthew Norvock
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	1. blood on my shirt, heart in my hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohh geez here we go  
> i wrote this so fast because i had it in my head for a couple hours and then didn't want to forget anything  
> so please excuse my absolutely beastly writing style where i stuff a shit ton of action into like three sentences and then nothing happens for pages on end. i abuse italics and bold CONSTANTLY. this is worse than a rough draft and there's a 50/50 chance i panic and delete it
> 
> the man is a WRECK but i love him and it turns out i really like writing norvock  
> he's kind of ooc ?? i think ?? i mean i gave him a laundry list of issues but it's not like we have a ton of canon to work with here  
> his internal monologue is 95% delayed reaction and profanity and it really gives me a will to live
> 
> the main reason i don't write a ton is because i can't START the damn thing, so enjoy this fic that deadass starts with the phrase "it all started". please don't come for my kneecaps only one of them is real anymore
> 
> t/w for violence, panic attack, amunet's KO'd the whole time, norvock only kinda pays attention to firearm safety, there's a brief mention of norvock being an atheist or adeist at least but it's super quick, in the spaces between scenes it's implied that norvock dissociates at least a little bit, hes got this stream of consciousness thing that sometimes gets a bit ideationy, generally beware

It all started when _that damn bastard_ and his gang kicked down the door of the suspiciously large apartment they'd rented. Sure, it was _almost_ all okay, but, really, has chance ever been kind to Norvock and Amunet?

* * *

Heart beating fast and adrenaline singing sharp in his veins, Norvock spun and narrowly avoided a grisly death by gunshot. He moved in a way bordering on grace and rhythm, quickly taking out one, two, three attackers in quick succession. Spinning again, he took stock of the scene unfolding. Five, ten, - nine, as Leslie's gauntlets cracked alarmingly into the ribs of one - , thirteen?, _Fucking hell, how many guys can fit through one window?_

Four, five, six down, a brief, sharp pain from a terribly aimed bullet grazing his shoulder, seven, eight and a half, _at least none of them are that good at this_ , nine, and a loud silence fell. 

Norvock kept turning, raising the sidearm he'd pulled off the sixth, his narrowed eyes scanning the shattered glass and open pane, the broken chairs and the ruined board game, and the scene of a thankfully failed hit yielded no signs of continued danger. For the first time in a few minutes, he let out the tension in his shoulders and let the stillness breathe. 

Stillness.

**_Shit._ **

Norvock dropped the gun - which probably didn't work - and nearly collapsed then and there. Icy panic clawed in his lungs as he searched and he momentarily prayed to a God he's lost faith in years ago.

He found her after nearly a full minute of panicked searching, and the brief comfort of her at least being still _here_ slowed the progress of his rising anxiety. It all came back in full force when he knelt at her side and the cold steel in his chest threatened to cut off his air forever. 

Amunet, with her shards in piles around her forearms, lay far too quietly and far too still on her side, an unmoving figure among the others. She was breathing, thankfully, and didn't have any gaping wounds or visible broken bones.

But she was just so, so still.

To Norvock's horrible dismay, and to the excitement of the clawed _thing_ writhing in his torso, her unconsciousness wasn't temporary. She didn't stir at all - not when he turned her over with trembling hands like she was an antique porcelain doll, not when he lifted her with all the gentleness his body wracked with panic and shaking breaths could afford and laid her back down on the ripped couch, and not when he carefully ran his hands along her limbs and through her hair and around her torso checking with tear-blurred eyes for any sign, any _reason_ , any explanation for her state. 

Nothing. No open cuts trickling blood down her face as the memory of a blow, no deep-embedded knife or shot slicing deep into her organs, no awkward angles twisting her bones or cracks spidering her ribcage. 

Nothing.

If he really tried, if he blinked and let his mind recede into fuzz, and pretended the cold draft from the window didn't bite the graze in his shoulder, he could imagine she was resting. He could put the night's events in a little box and lock it up tight and never let it bother him. The glacier in his lungs protested his momentary peace, and roared and shifted, seeming to take up all of the space he had for air and leaving him barely gasping. 

Norvock dropped onto the slightly cracked table and ran his shuddering hands through his own hair, weighing his very, very few options. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know appx. 2 people actually read my crackship fic but for those ~1.5 people, uhh enjoy?
> 
> i can't come up with criminal names (or maybe he HAS a name and i won't tell you >:) ) so this mystery mans is referred to as "bastard" the entire time.
> 
> you see, i WANTED this to be short, quick, artsy + aesthetic chapters but then it ended up just being a loooot of teeny chapters with annoying cuts.  
> i am absolute trash at action so kindly excuse the fact that norvock fighting reads like trashy-beach-novel smut with the verbs changed. i'm so sorry for the writing and for that mental image. 
> 
> this is so out of canon timeline it physically hurts. i tried to place it in flash canon but i gave myself a headache. you just need to know that cait has a handle (mostly) on the frost thing, the Crime Couple are together and their whole debacle hasn't happened (and won't because i'm in denial it ever happened), and umm barry is a pile of norvock's triggers in an approximately bipedal form
> 
> yes the title and chapter titles are lyrics, please help me let my 12 year old boy band phase die in 2020
> 
> i really don't know where this is going! thanks!


	2. late night devil, put your hands on me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part two, in which norvock has 1 lonely option and essentially faces his worst fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i WAS going to put this in the last chapter but it was getting disjointed and so here we are  
> if all goes well this is going to be posted pretty soon after the first
> 
> please ignore the fact that the whole debacle hasn't happened but he knows where star labs is. i haven't figured it out yet. caitlin is his frenemy i guess that explains it?
> 
> norvock is really not doing well & the poor guy really did not need this chapter to happen to him, but here we are
> 
> same t/w as last time! don't torture yourself like i did editing this! norvock is still panicking and dissociating! barry is a dick to him! it's really no fun at all

Norvock found himself standing at the back entrance of possibly the worst decision of his life.

He and Leslie had cased it months ago, and provided nothing had changed, he had a decent entrance strategy. The exit hadn't ever been worked out, but if all went well he wouldn't need one.

Norvock took a breath as deep as the night's trauma had left him able, and silently slid open the door leading to S.T.A.R. Labs.

* * *

It was late, late enough that there were no passing friends or loud voices to be heard. If he tried, Norvock's unusually good hearing could pick up a murmuring from their main room - _don't they have some name for it? -_ that thankfully sounded like Caitlin and only two others. Really, it wasn't like they were an ordinary three people, but he came unarmed and on okay terms with Caitlin.

He neared the room - the voices got clearer and he could tell the other two were Flash and Cisco - and as he approached the final turn with inaudible steps he let one last shudder leave his body.

Norvock turned the corner and all hell broke loose.

* * *

Honestly, Norvock and the fear of death had been well acquainted for years now. 

He was no longer paralyzed by a sudden mortal threat, or so worried that it threw him off his game. Years of close calls and ultimatums had had that effect. His fear had become more of a tool to him, the clear-headedness it gave him helping him to think on his feet and act quickly. At this point, a gun to his head didn't worry him so much as it gave him the push he needed to make up his mind. Very few and far between were the times anything like that even gave him pause.

But now? Now, as he found himself with a hard and unforgiving wall at his back, an icy blade pressed dangerously to his neck, a soft vibration in the air and the sour sting of electricity following it, he _froze_ , and in his blind panic a tumbling haze of confusion and anxiety took over his mind. 

Norvock opened his eyes - almost surprised that he'd closed them in the first place - and met a twin pair of steely blue ones inches from his own. 

".. Cait"

Her eyes, if possible, grew colder, and the knife at his neck danced closer to slicing his jugular. 

".. Cait .. I'm sorry, it's- fuck, it's Leslie, she- " he stammered, unable to focus, "there were guys - the window - I can't - she won't - _fucking hell, Cait_ \- I don't know what happened - what's wrong - I-" Norvock gasped, barely able to catch his breath against the increasing pressure of the icicle, and his eyes blurred once again as he looked back into the dark silver gaze. She simply maintained her stance and dark spots swam in his eyes and he desperately tried to push her arm away, the numbing effect of the ice barely concealing the way it was making him dizzy for lack of air. 

"Cait, please, she - I tried - need your help - Leslie - I don't know how - something's wrong - " his head spun and he was teetering on the edge of consciousness " I - she won't wake up - I can't - it's been a- an hour and - she's hurt somehow - I -"

Before he could cut himself off for about the twenty-third consecutive time, she did it for him. He didn't know what had eventually convinced her - the uncharacteristic panic, the barely concealed tear tracks, the truly pathetic attempt to shake her off, the way he swayed on his feet hardly able to stay standing, or the fact that he'd finally put together enough words to make himself clear - but the cold pressure disappeared from his neck. He took a shaky, but gladly whole, breath and blinked until he was sure the tears that had started forming were gone. Norvock watched her glance pointedly at the other two until they lowered their abilities too, and the eyes that met his when she turned back were a kind and concerned brown.

"How did this happen?"

And Norvock found himself the calmest he'd been the whole night, as he managed to recount the events in a more coherent way.

* * *

Norvock fiddled with the frayed, bloodstained edge of his coat from the floor of one of their _containment areas,_ which he had decided twenty minutes ago was hell with a nicer name. He absolutely hated everything about it. The damn thing was narrow and the walls were always too close, especially when a new bout of panic knocked the air from his chest and the strength from his muscles. The dampeners were a truly horrible thing - his eye snake couldn't be neutralized, but whatever magic left him able to see and hear decently after the "incident" had been taken, leaving him with less than half of the vision he'd had even before the snake, and so little hearing that the soft rustle of leather was almost too quiet to distinguish. Even the feeling of the material in his fingers felt dulled, and Norvock swapped between grounding himself at the expense of his mental state, or pausing in his fiddling also at the expense of his mental state. He spent over three-quarters of an hour in there - there was a clock on the opposite wall and while he couldn't see the numbers or the minute hand he could make a good guess - and every minute was worse than the last. 

None of this would have happened if _Flash_ hadn't declared him a hazard, and before his hearing was so rudely stripped from him he'd definitely heard the words "monster", "danger", "psycho", and some more colorful options he resorted to to get his point across. Really, it was nothing Norvock hadn't heard already from the voices in his head, but it stung to hear them out loud and in the open.

He continued to, quite frankly, deteriorate for the rest of his time in the cell. Every now and then the little speaker in the ceiling would crackle to life and Caitlin would ask a question, and every time he had to spend a few seconds fighting to even his voice and hide the tremor that now constantly shook his body. By the time someone arrived in person to update him, Norvock had moved his back to the glass door and alternately tucked his knees to his chest and used them to prop up his arms, his hands threading through his hair with diminished feeling. When the door slid up and he nearly jumped out of his skin, _could've heard them coming, fuck you Flash,_ he was met with a somewhat concerned-looking Cisco, who gave him a noncommittal nod and led him, finally returned senses and all, down a nondescript hallway to a nondescript door. He realized all too quickly that whatever occurred from here on out needed to be secret from the rest of the crew who worked here.

When finally the door was open and Caitlin glanced back at him from her spot in a rolling chair alongside a bed, Norvock briefly paused in his racing thoughts about the current situation and thought for a moment that he must look like a wreck, with his hair in ten directions and shadows gracing the spots below his eyes. None of this, he almost amusedly considered, helped his image in the eyes of Flash, who was, _completely fucking unnecessarily,_ lounging in his mask and suit on an old couch in the corner of the small room. 

Caitlin rolled another chair and gestured for him to sit, and as he crossed the short distance he caught sight of the partially hidden figure of Amunet on the bed. His chest tightened yet again, and he could swear he felt a piece of his heart crack when he saw how _small_ she looked, how prone and unwell she appeared under the too-bright fluorescent lights. She still wasn't conscious, and as he lowered into the chair he noted the various monitors attached to her and the images of scans flashing on the computer screen. 

Caitlin allowed him all the time he needed - really, a very short time since he could hardly bear to look at how Leslie's closed eyelids betrayed no movement, or how her breathing was abnormally quiet - before she produced a keyboard and flipped through the various scans she'd evidently done.

"Nothing odd on her MRI, her CAT scan didn't tell me anything except that she _possibly_ took a blunt hit to her abdomen, everything else is coming back completely ordinary and even her vital signs now are practically textbook for her state of unconsciousness."

Norvock watched a flicker of regret and uncertainty dance in her expression, and she looked thoroughly puzzled. He felt odd, like he was watching everything unfold from somewhere above the ceiling. Somehow his senses slipped back into dullness, and he felt like he wavered on the line of reality and impossible dream.

"The only tests I can still do would be bloodwork, and a scan to see if she's had some kind of infection or underlying problem for a while now."

Norvock floated formlessly, his body in the lab but his mind far, far away in a land of evening board games and movie dates and botched attempts at baking.

"I'm sorry, but as of right now I really don't know what's going on with Amunet."

He heard what she said as if it was a message from a distant planet, and he closed the doors of his spaceship because he knew if he came back to Earth there would be no way to put back together the shattered pieces of his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> norvock is straight up not having a good time and Barry is NOT. HELPING.
> 
> i end up having a lot of interest in writing these weird half-scenes where this poor man is not fully coherent but he's trying his absolute best for his (wife? girlfriend? employer? sugar mom? bodyguard-ee? they havent put a label on it yet)
> 
> the poor man is actually good at this i promise, he's just not himself and has been having a mild panic attack for entire hours at this point so do cut him some slack
> 
> i legitimately forgot that the cortex has a name and therefore so did norvock
> 
> i really threw it all out there on that last bit, the man is so tired and all he wants is his favorite person back and ooooh no there he goes and dissociates completely


	3. call me in the morning to apologize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peace? For Norvock? lol that's a funny joke 
> 
> in which oops it's actually very difficult to hide two entire people in a secure facility, and oops again barry is still being a dick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go again friends
> 
> same t/w, barry is extra shitty this time too
> 
> norvock has gone through all the stages of grief: panic, confusion, panic, bargaining, and panic & he's somewhere in the sleep deprivation depression zone as of now
> 
> joe makes an appearance! norvock makes the second worst decision of his life! more news at 8

For two whole days, things stayed the same. 

Norvock had a loose schedule of the rest of the team, and avoided crossing paths with anyone as he met with Caitlin for news and nicked small meals. Nothing changed with Amunet, and her blood test results were still open ended since they couldn't risk taking too much at once. 

Slowly, the list of reasons dwindled, and so did his luck.

* * *

The third day started the same way as the last two - he woke up early on the old couch with a crick in his neck and a lingering soreness in his ribs. The cut in his shoulder had faded, leaving a dull ache. Norvock spent the first few hours mindlessly rifling through research, comforting himself somewhat with the knowledge that at least he was _trying_.

Eight o'clock - too early for Barry but maybe he could catch Cisco on his way through - he wandered the silent halls aimlessly. Jumbled phrases fell over each other in his mind and he worked to organize them, things like _chronic hypoxemia_ and _cerebrovascular complication_ and _what the fuck could have possibly happened_.

He picked up on the sound of a door opening and faint footsteps from a distant hallway - _probably Cisco, it's 8:45 by now_ \- and noiselessly turned and tried to retrace his own steps.

_Left at the lab, right at the elevator, straight for twenty paces, wait, no, left again -_

As he paused to remember if it was the third or fourth door down the hallway, the footsteps caught up to him.

The audible click of a gun's safety behind him startled him, but not nearly as much as it disappointed him. They'd _insisted_ on keeping everything a secret until a verdict was reached, and _look at how well that turned out._

"Do you want to explain yourself, or do you really want to find out that badly what Hell looks like?"

Ah. He knew that voice, it was Flash's not-quite-father who was written on his little schedule as _unpredictable patterns_. 

Norvock pointedly flexed his empty hands out to the side - slowly and calmly, Satan could wait - and contemplated just how badly he'd fucked up this time. Explaining was off the table for reasons of divulging the _much, much worse public safety threat_ nearby, and though he knew Caitlin was trying her best he understood that any move he made against the team would end badly for that particular threat. 

"It's... not what it looks like" was the most vague attempt he could come up with in answer. 

Fabulous. If he wasn't already suspicious enough, he'd done a bang-up job of digging his grave even deeper. 

The unfamiliar ring of the emergency alarm - _fucking splendid_ \- sent a sharp pain through his sensitive ears and he fought the urge to cover them a millisecond too late. The twitchy sudden movement earned him a second click as the gun cocked and its cold weight rested on the back of his head.

"On your knees and your hands where I can see them. Try _anything_ and I won't be so kind."

_Kind?_ He really wasn't in a position to argue semantics, but the word struck an odd chord with him. With no other options Norvock quietly acquiesced, lowering onto his heels and bowing his head with his fingers knitted at the nape of his neck, and prayed the first to show up was someone on his side. 

Three sets of shoes hit the ground on the other side of a breach, and Norvock thought wildly that this well and truly could be the end of him, that he'd come all this way and evaded them for so long, only to die undefended in the base of his worst enemy. 

He nearly passed out then and there - his sleep deprivation was possibly playing a part - when at least two of the newcomers spoke with familiar voices in his defense, and all too quickly he was pulled back on to his feet and hurried away to the room ( _so it had been the fourth all along_ ) and told in so many words to sit tight and wait for them to decide his fate. 

At this point Norvock found it vaguely funny that they chose to have their heated conversation mostly within earshot of him. Did the CCPD _really_ not understand the whole meta thing?

"There had better be a _wonderful_ reason why you've had CCPD's Most Wanted and her boy toy " - a short, amused huff escaped Norvock - "in here under my nose for _three days-_ "

Caitlin moved to explain quickly, detailing the entire situation and emphasizing that yes, he was never armed, and no, he hadn't contacted anyone outside, and _yes of course we made sure everything checked out_. 

After a pause that stretched for far too long and a sigh that betrayed his growing age, Flash's father - _James? Joe? Jimmy?_ \- continued his rant in an exasperated voice.

"Do you realize how dangerous this is? Do you realize how dangerous _they both are?_ Did you have any plan, **whatsoever,** for the possibility that this was a ruse?"

Flash interjected with what ranked as the worst potential answer to those questions Norvock could have conceived.

"Well, no, but I think we had an understanding.. " - Norvock imagined him looking between the other two in an attempt to gain support - "that since she's, well, _incapacitated_ , it would be clear that anything he tried would have... repercussions."

Well then, Flash had just sped his way up to the top position on Norvock's list of Most Punch-able Face. 

"Fine." The father's voice distorted as he rubbed his face tiredly. "Fine. It's _my_ license on the line here, but fine. Bastard's damn lucky I didn't put one in him when I had the chance. The two of them have had shoot to kill orders for months now".

Huh, that explained his weird comment about how his not-at-all-veiled threats had been _kind_. 

The voices faded and Norvock felt a cold dread when he turned the door handle and it was locked from the outside. _Shit._

For the next five minutes Norvock moved quickly and silently through the small room, preparing. The cold breeze from the open first floor window ran its fingers through the space at his collar and the new tear at his arm, and he considered for a second how particularly ironic the whole thing was. 

Thirty seconds after the monitor protested loudly at being disconnected, Caitlin unlocked the door to find a thoroughly empty room and a dancing breeze fluttering in the curtains. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha excessive italics and dialogue go brr
> 
> do I ever start a chapter where he isn't under threat of death in the first 300 words? honestly I really don't know
> 
> yes norvock knows barry's name, he just refuses to use it 
> 
> yes his reaction to being point blank on an angry joe was "well fuck, guess i'll just die then"
> 
> yes this is quite possibly the worst decision he's made yet
> 
> YES JOE CALLED HIM A BOY TOY OK I PANICKED
> 
> i've concluded that the audience for this fic is <5 people so if yall got suggestions for where I can go with this please tell me. i won't judge anything because it can't possibly be worse than nothing


	4. surrender my everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IN 👏 WHICH👏
> 
> norvock regrets his entire life, ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY has a terrifying nightmare & consequently has his (fourth? fifth? six hundredth?) panic attack in like 4 days, decides extra measures are necessary, hallucinates as a result, uhh i promise it gets better soon. maybe. don't quote me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> same t/w, plus i did update the tags a little so please just read them again, they're going to change as i go because if it's not clear already i actually have no plan  
> plus some excessive blood  
> my medicated leg bouncy adhd sleep deprived ass took one look at norvock and said "that man is Mine"  
> i deleted half this chapter accidentally and had to rewrite it so enjoy my shitty attempt to write from my shitty memory  
> uHHH if you want to skip the nightmare part it's going to be all in italics (wdym thats how i usually write) and then theres a break line after it

_Norvock opened his eyes to a soft shuffling noise, and in the smoky darkness a small figure stood in the corner of the room._

_Amunet._

_He wanted to move, wanted to speak, wanted to get up and wrap his arms around her and promise to never let her out of his sight again, but he felt like he was moving through a dark cloud of molasses and his muscles protested every attempt._

_Her shape was odd, somehow her white shift was too bright and an odd aura hung about her._ _She made a step towards him and a red stain blossomed across her chest._

_"Why did you let this happen to me?"_

_She stumbled closer, and additional stains darkened her clothes. Norvock barely breathed, barely felt, barely heard anything else as the room around them seemed to fall away and he forced through to cloud to stand up fully._

_"Why did you let me get hurt?"_

_Her voice weakened and she staggered forward, leaning on the edge of the bed on her way. The blood nearly covered her entire chest, her hands and face a petrifying shade of red._

_"Why weren't you **there**?"_

_Closer still, and Norvock reached for her just in time when her legs gave out and she crumpled weakly to the ground. He cradled her with all the softness his shuddering arms could afford, but he couldn't reply._

_Leslie blinked up at him, struggling to clutch his upper arm and quickly losing strength. There was so, so much blood - coating her clothes and blocking her words and altogether burying her small frame in clouds of too-vibrant color._

_"Why - " she gasped and winced against the blood taking up the space in her lungs "- **why don't you love me**? **"**_

_Her final words less than a whisper, she released his arm and fell still and silent and **dead** , and Norvock's scream tore him apart._

* * *

He snapped awake in the same chair, in the same room, in the same stance he'd fallen asleep in hours before, with a horrible pressure in his chest and his heart beating faster than it logically should be able to. 

_Shit._

Norvock clambered to his feet and teetered unsteadily across the room - the faint outline of Leslie's very-much-alive body on the bed a small comfort - and fell through the bathroom door in the nick of time as his stomach's contents made an unwelcome appearance. His back shivered along the cold wall as he slid to the floor, wrapping his arms around himself in an effort to stabilize the harsh convulsions beginning to wrack his body. The memories of his dream rasped in his ears and the last of the questions rang louder than the rest.

_Why don't you love me?_

Norvock really didn't know how long he stayed shaking like a street cat in the corner of the room, except that the darkness outside the window had grown to a friendly early-morning daylight by the time he forced himself to un-contort and open his eyes. 

The dark metal case in the opposite corner - a _very_ illegal and _very_ lucrative stimulant he was holding on to with absolutely no idea where else to put it - winked at him in the sunlight as he stretched his aching muscles. 

He was awake for a total of eight hours when he rolled a broken down office chair into the already overfurnished room and opened a definitely stolen laptop.

* * *

Eighteen hours in, and the briefcase was a little lighter and Norvock's leg tapped a rhythm that only made sense to him in the space where the chair used to gave a wheel. He slowly worked his way through the rather obnoxious pile of voicemails from Caitlin clogging his phone, and came up with... not much.

_Inconclusive._

In between confusing descriptions of biomedical mechanics he _definitely_ did not understand, she was giving him hell for his poor life decisions. Something about an unidentifiable compound in her blood, something about _I'll ask around_ and _I'll try to figure it out_ and _Really, this would be so much easier if you stayed._

Fine. 

No update on how long, or how severe, or how little understood, or anything truly helpful beyond _hey, I might have a lead_.

Norvock didn't pretend to understand the complicated workings of science, but he would be damned if he didn't make a reasonable attempt. 

He read pages and pages of words he hadn't stayed awake in high school biology for long enough to understand, and skimmed an entire college textbook before closing the window and realizing that he could remember absolutely none of it. He very nearly cracked a smile through dry lips at the situation - really, downloading a textbook illegally was such a minor thing in comparison to everything else.

The briefcase had a new home under the desk, and he opened the book back up to try again.

* * *

Fifty hours awake, forty five if he counted the long stretch of time he was half-conscious after a shower, and the textbook didn't _really_ make sense but hey, at least he knew how to calculate the amount for his body weight now.

Finally he closed the laptop, and the ghost that has been whispering softly behind him for hours now spoke in a clear, biting tone that he'd never had directed to him.

"You know I won't be able to come back unless you _actually try"._

He'd decided after the first time he caught sight of her, decked out in her favorite outfit and delicately perched on the end of the bed, to spare himself some trouble and avoid looking at the imaginary presence.

"Are you _that_ convinced you're really helping?"

He bit the inside of his cheek and squeezed his eyes shut against her rising volume.

The ghost moved - an entirely new thing she hadn't done yet - and too suddenly there was a soft hand on his face and he was too _tired_ to fight the immediate impulse to lean in.

"What the hell is your **plan**?" Her sharp nails cut a thin line in his cheekbone, and she was gone, leaving no trace and leaving him cold and exhausted and with even more reason to stay awake.

* * *

At the seventy hour mark, no cold water or shitty coffee or dark glassy vials with labels in foreign languages could keep Norvock awake much longer.

He continued with the laptop and the ghost meandered in occasionally, picking up the tap-tap-tap with her nails on the wall once his leg muscles gave out.

He was too tired at this point to panic at thinking of the list of reasons he _really shouldn't_ go back to sleep, things including _what if she wakes up and I'm not there and what if someone comes and I'm not awake and what if no one is around to tell me it's just a dream_. 

The ghost kept whispering, kept slinking her confusingly long fingers around his skull and leaving deep scratches on his shoulders, but he was almost too tired to acknowledge her.

The briefcase winked, and the ghost tapped, and the endless meaningless words never really reached past Norvock's eyes as he scrolled eternally.

He stood up and stepped once in the direction of the door to investigate a sound that he wasn't sure was real, and simply collapsed into an aching pile of overused muscles and phantom touches and _but what if everything goes wrong?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote three chapters in 1 1/2 days and then got a little burnt out. not fully, but i did toast a bit  
> so chapters won't be that frequent, especially since calculus is now kicking my ass  
> i keep putting pressure on myself to make the final sentences really good and to be honest i don't see that continuing because WOW self imposed expectations are a bitch  
> since theres really not /that/ much more downhill from here he can go, its getting better soon i promise  
> since this chapter more or less hinges on the fact that he left star labs w leslie, i thought about how to do that for a while and settled on "it's barry's fault. everything is usually barry's fault"  
> in order to write this chapter i had to start the draft somehow but didn't have an opening, so this chapter started with "ooh bitch it's time for the spooky shit" until five minutes before it was published  
> i'm so mad that i managed to delete the entire bottom half, this is what happens when we don't put separate ideas in separate chapters. however i have learned nothing and the chapter stays like this but rewritten  
> i woke up at 6 in the morning and realized that when i rewrote it i forgot the ENTIRE thing with caitlin so enjoy the panic reupload.   
> i require validation to function so please give me any feedback you can, i dont care if you tell me i'm wasting my life on a snake man i just need to know  
> italics and bold go brr


End file.
